Why Disc Golf?

Getting back to primordial nature.

Until about 10,000 years ago, humans were hunter-gatherers. All they did for millions of years was: walk, hike, run, hunt, eat, throw sticks, throw rocks, hunt, eat, sleep, hike, walk, run…

Present-day humans are still wired for this hunter-gathering life. It’s “in our blood,” so to speak.

The point is, even when we’re sitting in a classroom or an office, our nervous system is still designed to chase the woolly mammoth. It’s the reason we experience “fight-or-flight” in stressful moments. It’s two or three million years of biological history engrained in our nervous system.

Because of this, there’s a funny irony to the human condition: We’re more at peace when we’re in motion. Our mind and body expect us to do “something.” In particular, we’re geared to aiming rocks and clubs at prey.

65,000 years ago, humans taught each other the most important skills—hunting and survival. Tribal life required the ability to accurately aim a rock or club at desperately needed prey.

That’s still in us. It’s why we love playing baseball or golf, why we take comfort in hiking through woods or climbing a hill.

Think of the layout of a modern-day golf course. It’s not so different from the landscape that primitive people faced when chasing deer, elk, wild boar, mammoths. It’s the sand bunkers and debris of melting glaciers, the winding hills and valleys of Ice Age topography…

To stand on the first tee of a golf course is to look out at a world we used to know. It’s why people carry golf clubs. They’re going off on a hunt. Way in the distance is the goal, the quest, the finish line.

Disc golf is the same. We’re hunting across the primordial landscape. It’s survival. We’re throwing a boomerang or a stone.

Not only is disc golf fun—and good exercise—but it “clicks” into something deep within us.

That’s why it’s good to keep playing. It’s not just the exercise. It’s the perfection of a great throw—the satisfaction, the accomplishment.